00:00Aaron, spelled A-R-O-N, really needed the job.
00:06His daddy was making rock-bottom wages at the local battery factory.
00:09His mother worked as a cleaning lady.
00:11The family lived in a government-subsidized apartment on the tough side of town.
00:15It was a matter of paying the family bills.
00:18Aaron really needed the job.
00:22And once he got it, then he kept it.
00:24His job as an usher in a theater.
00:28Every day after school, the teenager would walk the two miles home,
00:31change into his usher's uniform,
00:33walk a mile to the Lowe's State Theater on Main Street.
00:36But aside from the necessity of working at Lowe's, Aaron genuinely loved it,
00:40because inside that grand old theater building,
00:44past the ornate columns and the marble-floored lobby, was another world.
00:48A world which Aaron so much preferred to the real one.
00:54How great it would be, he thought.
00:57Himself to become a movie star.
00:59Now, how would a fellow go about that, he wondered.
01:01He stared intently at the big screen in the darkness,
01:04studying the actors in every aspect.
01:06After a while, he began taking notes on them,
01:08wrote down how the actors performed and why he thought they were popular.
01:11Observed that dark-haired stars seemed to outlast the light-haired ones,
01:14that many of the most successful never smiled in their publicity shots.
01:19Even the way Clark Gable wore his shirts interested Aaron.
01:22Every night when his shift was over,
01:23a long walk home lay before him,
01:25and yet the journey seemed a brief one,
01:26because of the thoughts dancing in his head,
01:29the reflections of what he had seen on the silver screen.
01:32And as I say, Aaron really needed the job,
01:34but this is the rest of the story.
01:38One night he got in a fight with another rusher,
01:41a boy his age.
01:43Seems the girl who worked at the candy counter
01:44had taken a liking to Aaron,
01:46had given him a candy bar for free.
01:47The other rusher was going to tell the manager.
01:51Anyway, the manager,
01:52a straight-laced fellow named Arthur Groom,
01:55saw the two boys hurling fists at each other,
01:58and he fired them both on the spot.
02:01They tried to explain,
02:03but Mr. Groom just walked away.
02:07Aaron was unemployed.
02:09Now remember this,
02:11Aaron had been fired by Mr. Groom.
02:14He tried other jobs after that,
02:17but never got the hang of them.
02:19Until the career,
02:21which he stayed with for the rest of his life.
02:24And because of that career,
02:27his family would never go hungry again.
02:30For only three years later,
02:33and this staggers the imagination,
02:36only three years,
02:38three short years after that same manager,
02:41and that same theater,
02:44gave Memphis, Tennessee its premiere of a motion picture,
02:47a movie starring the usher Mr. Groom had fired.
02:49Just three years.
02:52The young man's parents attended the Grand Open.
02:56The young man himself was back in Hollywood,
02:59already making a second motion picture.
03:04And there would be a great many more.
03:08There's no way to know
03:09that he kept his job as an usher.
03:11He might have just dreamed on forever.
03:15But instead he walked out that theater door
03:17and eventually walked onto the silver screen
03:20and into the hearts of millions
03:22who celebrate his name to this day.
03:25Aaron, A-R-O-N, was his middle name.
03:29The other names were Elvis,
03:32Aaron,
03:33Presley,
03:34and now you know
03:36the rest of the story.
03:38The End
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